Max's Cool Beans

In which we discover all sorts of weird, wacky, beautiful, and thought-provoking "things."

Welcome to this week's Max's Cool Beans column in which we pause for a moment to take a deep breath (hold it… hold it… now exhale), slow down, relax, and start winding down in preparation for the weekend. As part of this exercise, I've gathered a few choice diversions for your delectation, delight, pondering, and rumination. This week's humble offerings are as follows:

Max's Cool Beans (Max is the "has-bean" on the right).

No. 1: Let's start with something related to the use of light. My chum with the screen name Antedeluvian (yes, he knows it's the wrong spelling) sent me a link to the most amazing video showing projection mapping onto flat surfaces. The illusion is incredible. You have to keep on reminding yourself that these are just simple flat surfaces you are watching. (Click here to discover more.)

No. 2: Speaking of light and the manipulation thereof, my friend Jay sent me a link to a rather interesting article about a building that has cameras pointing in all directions. The images from the cameras on each side are processed and presented on display panels on the complementary faces. The end result is for the building to appear to be invisible. Hang on, maybe there isnít a building there at all? (Click here to discover more.)

No. 3: Still on the subject of light, I'm sure we all know that photons are massless elementary particles that donít interact with each other and that act as the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Wait just a minute -- did I say massless and donít interact with each other? Well, it seems that scientists have been able to coerce photons to interact with each other to the extent that they form "photonic molecules" that appear to have mass. I'm still trying to wrap my poor befuddled brain around this one. (Click here to discover more.)

No. 4: I recently wrote a blog about the Fitbit Zip, which counts how many steps you take throughout the day. In a comment to this blog, a reader with the screen name of Truthfinder basically called me an idiot (well, I took it that way). Happily, I refuted Truthfinder's assertion as to my mental capabilities in this follow-up blog. I must admit that I was feeling a tad perky when I finished this blog. It reminded me of the French Taunting scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when the Frenchman on the castle ramparts shouts, "Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" (Click here to see this scene.)

No. 5: Of course, this immediately reminded me of two classic videos in which the dialog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is dubbed over a collage of scenes from the original Star Trek on its "five year mission behind the beyond, behind which no man has gone behind, beyond, before!" LOL. (Click here and click here to see these compilations.)

No. 6: Last but not least for this week, sometime ago I penned a blog about a Shakespearian version of the Hokey Pokey. This was, of course, jam-packed with all sorts of interesting tidbits of trivia that you will never need to know. I even managed to include a rather cool picture of a bird that appears to be joining in the fun.

The reason I'm waffling on about this is that I just saw a rather funny video of Bill Bailey performing the Hokey Cokey in the style of Kraftwerk (Click here to see this video.)

As usual, if you know of any interesting sites you'd care to share, please email them to me at max.maxfield@ubm.com for possible inclusion in a future Cool Beans column.